Dozens hurt as Bedouin clash with Egyptian police over evacuation
Egypt orders razing of homes in 150 meter area along border with Gaza to curb digging of smuggling tunnels.
By The Associated PressDozens of demonstrators were wounded Monday when Bedouin clashed with Egyptian police in the Sinai Peninsula to protest a government order to demolish their houses along the Gaza Strip's porous border.
Egyptian media have been reporting a government plan to evict the Bedouins from a 150 meter strip of land along the border to prevent traffickers from digging tunnels used to smuggle weapons and people into Gaza.
About 3000 protesters shouted anti-government slogans and demanded that authorities rescind the order. "We will not leave our land, we will make it our graves," the Bedouins chanted.
Security officials said at least one police officer was wounded when protesters lobbed rocks at a police force trying to disperse them in downtown Rafah, the main town on the border.
Police initially said it fired tear gas and used water cannons to evict demonstrators from the streets.
A reporter at the scene then saw police firing live ammunition in the air and rubber bullets at the protesters.
Dozens of demonstrators, possibly as many as 50, were wounded, the reporter said.
The protest came a day after a U.S. delegation toured the area to probe reports of weapons smuggling.
Aboul Hassan el-Sinawi, a Bedouin from the Al-Rumelat tribe in Rafah, said he was protesting because local government officials ordered him and his family to abandon their house, which he said lies some two kilometers from the border.
"This is ridiculous, how can a two-kilometer long tunnel be built in the desert," el-Sinawi said.
Protesters said authorities warned those who refused eviction that their homes would be demolished. They said the government is offering financial compensation for their houses, but not for trees and farmlands.
Egypt is under pressure from the United States and Israel to stop the flow of weapons into Gaza ever since Hamas seized control of the tiny coastal territory in June.
Two congressional delegations have inspected the border zone this month to probe reports about the tunnels along the 14-kilometer border.
Egyptian authorities are considering a plan to demolish all homes next to the borders to prevent them from being used to hide tunnels.
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actually, egyptian, it is very easy indeed to imagine egypt pressuring the u.s. to tighten its border regulation, were that border to involve massive smuggling of lethal weapons used to attack egypt itself or some close ally of egypt or some country the attacks upon which were a source of significant instability in an area where seeking stability is urgent. your point, then, is not a very compelling one. much more compelling would be to point out that seizing peoples' homes and lands is rather drastic, and should be at most a last resort. is there some way, perhaps, to ensure that the bedouins themselves stop the smuggling? if there is, that should be tried. they should have first crack at solving the very problem presently proffered as justification for moving them. but in order for that to happen they must, surely, either admit that it is a serious problem or show why it is not. that would be a constructive response. whinging about the usual clumsiness of the u.s. is not.
Egyptian, who told you that politicians have souls? Americans aren't devils either - just ordinary flawed human beings. Some are good, some are bad, most fall somewhere between these two extremes. They are trying to make the world a better and safer place. Being human they get it wrong quite a lot of the time but better America as a superpower than China or Russia or Iran. Left to their own devices some (not all) Bedouin clans can become 20th century Apaches owing no allegiance to anybody and engaging on a criminal rampage that would put the Mafia to shame. If they are smuggling weapons then rest assured they will also smuggle people, drugs and anything else detrimental to society. It is not a bad thing that the Egyptian police are moving them. A militant Islamic Gaza will also be a threat to Egypt. Better to secure the border and close down the arms smugglers.
Perhaps if you Gypos hadn't been smuggling lethal weapons into Gaza there wouldn't have been any need for this? But I guess it's part of your culture to blame others for your own mistakes - as soon as you take responsibility for your own actions people might start taking your criticisms serious for once... But I shan't hold my breath
"The protest came a day after a U.S. delegation toured the area to probe reports of weapons smuggling." Can you imagine an Egyptian delegation touring the US-Mexican border area to probe reports of drugs/weapons/immigrant smuggling from Mexico and into the US? Not in your dreams! Mubarak has given a new meaning to the word "sovereignty"! Now we know what the $13B in American "aid" is buying. He has sold his soul to the American devil - and for a very cheap price at that!